This week's news on Pakistan Cricket.
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Extra T20s for England women
16 MayECB
England Women will play three additional NatWest International Twenty20 fixtures against Ireland and Pakistan later this summer at The National Cricket Performance Centre, Loughborough University. -
Prior: Windies should fear backlash
15 Maywww.guardian.co.uk - sport
• England wicketkeeper ready for action after frustrating winter
• 'I don't think we need to prove anything as such,' he saysMatt Prior has warned West Indies that England are "pumped" to bounce back from a frustrating winter in the first Test at Lord's this week.
Prior, who scored a century on his Test debut against the same opponents at Lord's five years ago, admitted that the four consecutive defeats they suffered against Pakistan and Sri Lanka had been a shock to the system after the constant success of last summer.
"I don't think we need to prove anything as such, because we've played pretty good cricket for a few years now," said the wicketkeeper. "But certainly after a few little glitches over the winter everybody's very pumped up to start well this summer."
Prior has welcomed Jonny Bairstow to the squad as a wicketkeeping ally rather than rival. "If he smashes a double hundred and I get nought he'll probably be a rival pretty quickly," said the 30-year-old. "But there's a number of wicketkeepers around the country and always has been. I know I have to perform if I want to keep my place. It's always exciting when a player like Jonny comes into the squad. He's the only other bloke in the room who knows what it's like to be a keeper."
Ottis Gibson, the West Indies coach, declared his confidence that the tourists will be able to field a full-strength bowling attack after Fidel Edwards, Kemar Roach and Ravi Rampaul all bowled in the MCC Academy at the Nursery End of Lord's. All three have been struggling with injuries during the first two weeks of the tour – Edwards with a back, Rampaul with a neck and Roach with an ankle.
"Everybody pulled up OK today," said Gibson, "this being the big event. Kemar's been treated twice a day and he had a little bowl today, about six overs, pretty controlled, no complaints. Ravi was just a stiff neck and Fidel is fine also. So everything is all set for Thursday."
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Five players suspended after corruption allegations in IPL
15 Maywww.guardian.co.uk - sport
• Uncapped Indian players provisionally suspended by BCCI
• Probe into accusations made by local television channelFive uncapped Indian cricketers have been provisionally suspended following allegations of corruption in the Indian Premier League, the country's cricket board (BCCI) revealed on Tuesday.
The Indian cricket board has also ordered a probe into the accusations, made by a local television channel.
"The president of BCCI has immediately appointed Ravi Sawani (former head of ICC anti-corruption and security unit) as the commissioner to make a preliminary enquiry," the BCCI said in a statement.
The five cricketers – TP Sudhindra (Deccan), Mohnish Mishra (Pune), Amit Yadav (Punjab), Shalabh Srivastava (Punjab) and Abhinav Bali – will remain suspended from all cricketing activities pending the investigation, the BCCI revealed. Out of the five cricketers, Bali has not played in any of IPL's five editions.
Footage from India TV appeared to show an IPL player negotiating a fee for bowling a no-ball, while another said he received under-the-table payments above his contracted fee.
Each of the nine franchises has a salary cap and the player in question has not been capped by the national team, meaning he cannot be paid more than 3m Indian rupees ($55,700), according to IPL rules.
The BCCI sought complete footage of the sting operation from the channel and later had a teleconference with the IPL governing council on Tuesday afternoon where the decisions were taken.
Last year, the Pakistan players Salman Butt, Mohammad Asif and Mohammad Amir were jailed in Britain for their role in a spot-fixing scandal relating to a Test match against England at Lord's in August 2010.
The spot-fixing scam came to light after a British newspaper recorded the sports agent Mazhar Majeed boasting of how he could arrange for players to rig elements of matches for money. The International Cricket Council subsequently banned the three players for a minimum of five years.
A series of scandals has tarnished the image of the cash-rich IPL, which boasts a host of celebrity owners including India's richest man, Mukesh Ambani, the spirits and airline magnate Vijay Mallya and the Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan.
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Hired guns consign West Indies' Test power to the history books
14 Maywww.guardian.co.uk - sport
England should have little trouble against a once formidable force stripped of their best talent by the lure of Twenty20
Ken Rutherford averaged 27.08 in Test cricket. That figure was not truly representative of a considerable talent, yet it was a lot higher than it might have been. Rutherford had to build a Test career after one of the most traumatic and inhumane introductions to Test cricket imaginable. At the age of 19, he was picked by New Zealand to open the batting during their tour of the Caribbean in 1984-85. Malcolm Marshall destroyed him. Rutherford got a pair on debut; in the series he made 12 runs at an average of 1.71.
A few months earlier, Andy Lloyd's Test debut had ended after half an hour when he was hit on the side of the head by a short ball. Lloyd spent more than a week in hospital and did not play cricket again that summer. His Test career was over.
The fate of Rutherford and Lloyd is in contrast to that of Jonny Bairstow. When he was selected by England for the first Test, there was a concurrence that this was a great series in which to make a Test debut. Such an attitude is an startling reflection of the extent to which the West Indies Test team have declined. They used to be the most marketable team around – everybody loves a scary movie – and the greatest challenge. Now they are seen as a pushover, and the three‑match series feels like little more than the fulfilment of Future Tours Programme obligations.
Sometimes the impression of West Indies is that they are a side who are not living as a Test nation, merely killing time. In 2009, Chris Gayle said he "wouldn't be so sad" if Test cricket ceased to exist. West Indies performances in five-day cricket, once utterly breathtaking, have acquired an immovable sheen of dreary incompetence. They have not been higher than seventh in the ICC Test rankings since the summer of 2000.
They are particularly poor overseas. In the past 15 years, their away record against teams other than Zimbabwe and Bangladesh is staggering, with two wins and 50 defeats from 65 Tests. A 2-0 defeat in this series would almost be a moral victory. The cricket world has been through the stages of sporting grief and is now at number five: acceptance, with a shrug and an acknowledgement that West Indies are not very good at Test cricket any more, and may never be again. It is accompanied by a degree of pity, which in itself prompts further regret. Nobody pitied Marshall or Michael Holding. Nobody even thought about pitying Viv Richards.
It would help West Indies if they had their best team on the pitch, yet an XI of those who are not on this tour might well beat the XI who start on Thursday. For all sorts of weird and unwonderful reasons for this, a number of West Indies' best players are dotted around the globe.
The largest group are in India, playing in the IPL. Although other sides have suffered – most obviously Sri Lanka with the retirement of Lasith Malinga – no side embody the struggle between Test cricket and Twenty20 better than West Indies. Chris Gayle, who has again illuminated the IPL with a series of outrageous assaults, played the last of his 91 Tests in 2010. The irrepressible all-rounder Kieron Pollard has never played a Test, and focuses on the short form to such an extent that Holding once said: "Pollard, in my opinion, is not a cricketer."
Not that Holding begrudges the hired guns their bounty. "You can't blame any cricketer for wanting to secure their future. The ICC needs to make sure these Twenty20 tournaments are well structured and don't interfere with other people's cricket. Test cricket may still go on but it will soon become irrelevant. That is the direction I see it going unless the ICC grabs hold of the game and does something about it."
Most troubling of all, perhaps, is the case of Sunil Narine, the mystery spinner from Trinidad. Narine has an average of 11.88 from six first-class matches and bamboozled Australia during the one‑day series in March – but then, instead of making his Test debut, he flew to India after being bought for $700,000 (£434,500) by the Kolkata Knight Riders.
"In an ideal world you would want all your best players available all the time but the reality is that is not possible because of the financial situation," said the West Indies coach, Ottis Gibson. "It is what it is and we just have to get on with it."
Gibson and the captain, Darren Sammy, have tried to place a new emphasis on professionalism, fitness and enthusiasm – an admirable initiative but one that can work both ways. They have been accused by some of failing to broaden their church sufficiently to include unorthodox talent.
The bigger problem is the West Indies Cricket Board, a body that has the capacity to fall out with a player in an empty room. Gayle is scheduled to play in the one-day series in June but that would be his first international appearance since last year's World Cup, which was followed by a shambolic and undignified public spat between him and the WICB.
The brilliant Jerome Taylor, who routed England for 51 in 2009, has been ostracised by the board and has not played any senior cricket for a year. He is 27 years old. At 30, Jermaine Lawson, who took a Test hat‑trick against Australia in 2003, has been playing for Enforcers Cricket Club in a Twenty20 competition in the Bronx. He and Taylor are reportedly part of a ramshackle, Lashings-style World XI scheduled to play in Pakistan later this month.
Other experienced players such as Ramnaresh Sarwan, Brendan Nash and Corey Collymore will spend their summer playing county cricket after being overlooked. Yet even though a full team would be an improvement, few would expect their best XI to seriously challenge England. It will never quite compute for those of a certain age but the idea of West Indies as a Test force is now just another of those antiquated things that belonged in the previous century.
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Jonny Bairstow and Graham Onions in England squad to face West Indies
13 Maywww.guardian.co.uk - sport
• 22-year Yorkshire batsman named for first time
• Onions one of five seamers named in squadJonny Bairstow has been named in an England Test squad for the first time. The 22-year-old Yorkshireman, one of a 13-man squad for next week's first Test against the West Indies at Lord's, can expect to bat at number six if selected. That is a possibility in the absence of Ravi Bopara, who suffered a thigh injury two days ago which appears to have ruled him out of contention.
There is also a place in the squad for the seamers Steve Finn, Tim Bresnan and Graham Onions as England seek to cover all bases in a pace attack set to be led by James Anderson and a fit-again Stuart Broad. There was no place for Monty Panesar after his inclusion in the side during England's winter matches in the sub-continent.
Bairstow, who has played in six one-day internationals and six Twenty20s for England, is the only player among the 13 yet to be capped at Test level. Since making a sparkling debut in an ODI against India in Cardiff last September, he has also continued to impress in the longer format this year with two centuries already in Division Two of the County Championship.
If selected on Thursday, Bairstow will follow in his late father's footsteps as an England Test player. David Bairstow played four Tests for his country between 1979 and 1981.
The national selector Geoff Miller said: "Jonny Bairstow has put in a number of impressive performances both for England Lions and Yorkshire and has been working hard on the England Performance Programme over the last couple of years. He is an exciting young player, who now has an opportunity to experience the Test environment."
Miller also explained the presence of five seamers in the 13, as England seek to consolidate their number one Test status in three matches against the Windies.
"We have selected a very strong 13-man squad which allows us to consider a number of options before making a decision about Thursday's side," he added. "We have included five seam bowlers who have all demonstrated that they are capable of winning Test matches for England."
He acknowledged England's awkward winter, against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates and then away to Sri Lanka, after reaching the top of the International Cricket Council rankings last summer.
Miller said: "This is an important period for us following a challenging winter where we learnt some valuable lessons, and we are preparing for a highly competitive series against a West Indies side full of quality players."
England squad (for the first Test v West Indies, starting at Lord's on 17 May):
AJ Strauss (captain), JM Anderson, JM Bairstow, IR Bell, TT Bresnan, SCJ Broad, AN Cook, ST Finn, G Onions, KP Pietersen, MJ Prior, GP Swann, IJL Trott.
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India, Pak pad up to put cricket ties back on track
12 MayThe Times of India
The BCCI announced that it would recommend Sialkot Stallions, the Pakistan T20 champions, be invited for the Champions League T20. -
Can tortoise Alastair Cook creep up on Kevin Pietersen to win race? | Barney Ronay
12 Maywww.guardian.co.uk - sport
The battle to become the first Englishman to score 23 Test hundreds is one of the summer's most intriguing cricket subplots
There are some fairly rubbish records in cricket these days. Forgettable milestones, duff gongs, empty laurels: these are all, understandably, a function of cricket's ongoing moneying-over, the need to enshrine new and definitive standards of wonderfulness. The IPL now records, with fevered bombast, the number of times a player has reached 30, while during England's one-day series against Pakistan in the United Arab Emirates it was possible to be crowned man of the match, performer of the match, most entertaining player of the match and also sweet and salty performer of the match, an award presumably for something strikingly bitter-sweet, a moment of joy and pain mixed together, like being stabbed in the eye by the woman you love.
In a time of vaulting hyperbole it seems appropriate it should be Test cricket that looks all set to provide a record that, while widely flagged, has still flown a little under the radar. With England due to announce their squad for the opening Test of the summer against West Indies, and with the tourists having spent the last few days "acclimatising" to the sadism-cricket of late spring by contracting trench foot in assorted outlying paddy fields, it is perhaps the right time to dwell for a moment on one of the summer's key subplots: the race to become the first Englishman to score 23 Test hundreds, a mark that is likely to be passed this season by Kevin Pietersen or – at a long shot – Alastair Cook.
This is the grandest of English cricket's records, if only because the current mark of 22 was set in 1939 by Walter Hammond and has only ever been equalled (most recently by Geoffrey Boycott). Plus there is a sense of late-blooming dramatic tension to the pursuit, given that at one point it looked as though at a push four members of the England top six might end up ploughing carelessly past this most stately of records en masse like a high-powered yacht party, leaving the barnacled skeletons of Hammond, Gooch and Cowdrey drenched in their mocking scurf.
The briefly insatiable Ian Bell 2.0 has since stalled. As has Andrew Strauss whose game has dwindled from the minimalist – the back-foot clump, the wasp-swat pull – to the essentially nonexistent, leaving him now occupying a more or less ceremonial role, emerging like Captain Bird's Eye beaming and twinkling at the top of the order and then abruptly clearing off while everybody else gets on with making fish fingers.
And so we have dwindled to a contrasting duopoly: Cook and Pietersen. Or more likely Pietersen and Cook, as it is the lovable dufus-king of England's middle order who leads the way on 20 to Cook's 19. Momentum is with him too: Pietersen has played a match-winning innings in four of his past seven international matches, regaining a loose-limbed happiness in his late pomp that was absent during the lost years of faux-serious Middle Pietersen.
In the meantime Cook's progress has congealed a little. Take away his sole Test (double) hundred since he was appointed ODI captain this time last year and he's averaging 26 in his past nine matches. A retrenchment is occurring, a process of adjustment, but at precisely the wrong moment as far as the race to 23 is concerned. Pietersen will, in all likelihood, be a deserving winner at some stage later this summer. In spite of which – and sorry, Kev – it is still to be hoped that Cook the tortoise can creep up on Pietersen's shoulder and snatch it at the last.
A preference for Cook might seem a little perverse: of the two he is clearly the roundhead, Oliver Cromwell to Pietersen's prancing King Charles I. Where KP has a balletic gymnasticism in his batting, Cook takes guard like a man about to endure, majestically, some inflicted impertinence, carrying with him at the wicket a sense of epic colonial resistance, like a baked and wilting beefeater still propped wincingly upright while those around him swoon.
There are of course shared virtues. Like Cook, Pietersen is a team player, a diligent practiser, a technician (yes: really) who likes to theorise on "pure batting". His tempo alone is a function of victory: where Cook has made much of scoring Daddy hundreds, these tend to be the hundreds of a gout-ridden Victorian patriarch, whereas Pietersen's are flashy-uncle hundreds, the kind of hundreds that pull the clutch in, take a swig from the hip flask and freewheel all the way downhill into the wedding marquee.
This is not – repeat not – a South African thing. But it is still essentially provenance that dictates Cook must win the race to 23. The fact is, you just can't make another Pietersen. He is a glorious improbability, a treat, a foundling genius. But you might be able to make another Cook, a great talent but also demonstrably a product of school, academy, Under-19s and the crabbed limitations of the mulch-ridden English summer. A birth certificate alone is of no structural interest (Strauss for example is a wholly English cricketer). But Cook is redolently English in the only way that really matters in international sport, specifically his ability to be replicated. His success says: something is right here. Do it again. The system, via multifarious tweaks and fiddles and judgment calls, is just about working.
These are occasionally difficult times for Test cricket but it is a tribute to the occasional verve of the last decade that two English batsmen are closing on that old curmudgeon of a centuries record. When it does go there will be temptation to define an era by the identity of the man who takes it. It ought to be Cook. But you get the batting geniuses you deserve and the coronation of the delightful, enduringly sui generis Super Kev will perhaps have a more accurate tale to tell.
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Sri Lankan fast bowler Lasith Malinga signs for Middlesex to play T20
11 Maywww.guardian.co.uk - sport
• Angus Fraser praises 'the best bowler in the world'
• Malinga is currently at the IPL with Mumbai IndiansThe Sri Lankan fast bowler Lasith Malinga has signed for Middlesex to play in the Friends Life t20. His debut will come in the their fourth match of the competition, against Essex at Lord's on 21 June, after featuring in Sri Lanka's one-day and Twenty20 series against Pakistan.
Middlesex's managing director of cricket Angus Fraser said by signing the 28-year-old Malinga, Middlesex "will have the best [bowler] in the world".
Malinga is currently playing for the Mumbai Indians in the Indian Premier League, where he has taken a competition-leading 20 wickets.
Fraser added: "Every county is looking for a bowler that provides their attack with variety, the ability to bowl during powerplays and at the death … something different from the norm."
The T20 competition begins on 12 June.
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Richard Pybus to interview for Bangladesh coaching role
10 MayCricinfo
Richard Pybus, the former Pakistan coach, has also been shortlisted by the Bangladesh Cricket Board (BCB) as a candidate to coach the national team -
Michael Gove: public school domination 'morally indefensible'
10 Maywww.guardian.co.uk
Education secretary blames failure of politicians to tackle public school stranglehold over positions of power in the UK
The dominance of the public schoolboy in every prominent role in British society is "morally indefensible", the education secretary has warned.
Michael Gove said the "sheer scale" of privately educated men in positions of power in business, politics, media, comedy, sport and music was proof of a "deep problem in our country".
Politicians have failed to tackle the issue with "anything like the radicalism required", he admitted in a speech to independent school headteachers in Brighton. In England, more so than almost any other country, the privileged are likely to stay privileged and the poor are likely to stay poor, he said.
"Around the Cabinet table, a majority, including myself, were privately educated," Gove said. He added that the shadow chancellor, shadow business secretary, shadow Olympics secretary, among others, were also educated at independent schools.
"On the bench of our supreme court, in the precincts of the bar, in our medical schools and university science faculties, at the helm of FTSE 100 companies and in the boardrooms of our banks, independent schools are - how can I best put this - handsomely represented," he said.
Just 7% of the English population are educated privately, but half the UK's gold medallists at the last Olympics went to independent schools, Gove said. Quoting Luck, a book by Ed Smith, a former England cricket player-turned journalist, Gove said Britons were 20 times more likely to play for England if they had attended a private school. While 25 years ago, only one of the 13 players representing England on a cricket tour of Pakistan went to a fee-paying school; that figure had risen to two-thirds.
"The composition of the England rugby union team reveal the same trend," Gove said.
The stars of British comedy, theatre and TV are predominantly from public schools, he said, citing Hugh Laurie, David Baddiel and Armando Iannucci.
"Popular music is populated by public schoolboys," he said, giving Chris Martin of Coldplay and Tom Chaplin of Keane as examples.
But the public school "stranglehold" is strongest in the British media, Gove argued. The chairman of the BBC and its director-general, as well as many national newspaper editors, are former private schoolboys, he said.
"Indeed, the Guardian has been edited by privately educated men for the last 60 years. But then, many of our most prominent contemporary radical and activist writers are also privately educated," he said.
"It is undeniable that the individuals I have named are hugely talented and the schools they attended are premier league institutions, but the sheer scale, the breadth and the depth of private school dominance of our society points to a deep problem in our country … More than almost any developed nation, ours is a country in which your parentage dictates your progress," Gove said.
"Those who are born poor are more likely to stay poor and those who inherit privilege are more likely to pass on privilege in England than in any comparable country. For those of us who believe in social justice, this stratification and segregation are morally indefensible."
Gove said Britain was "squandering our greatest asset - our children" by having so many "manifestly not achieving their potential". The coalition's education reforms were helping a growing number of schools to prove that "destination need not be destiny", he said.
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